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Spiritual newsletter – Religious symbolism, organised religion vs atheism, global warming …

Katinka - Spirituality — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 13:37:56 +0000

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Just to remind you, with the gift season coming up:

The rest of my spiritual newsletter contains:

New online
Short Quotes
Space
Is Buddhism a Religion?

Meditation on the Secret Doctrine, dreams, conditioning and Tibet
Tangled hierarchies, Buddhism best religion? courage, diversity, calendars and theosophical history
Sorrow, stress, intelligence, wisdom, poverty, ambition & the Big Bang – newsletter, May 2009

About the Importance of Religious Symbols

Katinka - Spirituality — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 13:34:33 +0000

The first ‘lecture’ I ever gave, I gave for a very private audience: a few members of the Groningen lodge of the Theosophical Society. I was about 19 and still, ostensibly, studying chemistry. One of my fellow students went along. My main point that evening was that the importance of symbols was as a starting point for reflection and meditation. That no symbol had only one meaning. That the meaning of symbols was to be felt and approached from various directions. In other words: the proces was more important than any answer. My fellow chemistry student came away from that evening saying: they wanted the meaning of the symbols, they did not hear it when you said that they should find their own meaning. She was not wrong.

After all – don’t we all like answers more than questions? Don’t we do crossword puzzles for the sake of having finished them? In fact, crossword puzzles consist of a long series of questions with, within the game, only one right answer. The only people I’ve met who are able to sit long with questions are scientists. Science teacher after science teacher has told me that in order to write a paper, one doesn’t have to have the right answer to the question. Or something. I never quite believed even them. I have never read a science paper without there being some sort of answer to the original question asked – even if in the proces of writing it, the question changed.

But in the area of symbolism and spiritual growth – stagnation is death. Thinking you know is a certain way of not going any further. That’s why I was very glad to find that Sri Krishna Prem and Sri Madhava Ashish (I’ll refer to them together as ‘Ashish’ from here on) in their ‘Man the Measure of All Things‘ spend a whole lot of time explaining how to deal with the symbolism in The Secret Doctrine, and religion in general.

Those who know me, know I love facts. I love the feeling of knowing the answer. I will also express my opinion quite forcefully. I do hope I change my mind when I find out I’m wrong, but that’s as far as I’ll go. When I was 19 however, I was firmly steeped in not knowing. I was doing what I told my fellow lodge members to do: meditating on symbols, visualising them, conjuring up numbers and their relation to symbols. Aside from my own intuition, The Secret Doctrine was my main source of inspiration. In the end though, I’m afraid I did come to conclusions about what ‘one’ meant, and ‘two’ etc.

I can still conjure that hazy feeling of being immersed in feeling, thoughts and not knowing. It’s a bit like the feeling you have when you’ve just woken up from a particularly strong dream.

Ashish too refers to that feeling. On p. 29 he quotes Jane Harrison who says: ”Nor must we regard this haze of the early morning as a deleterious mental fog, as a sign of disorder, weakness, oscillation. It is not confusion or even synthesis; rather it is as it were a protoplasmic fullness and forcefulness not yet articulate in the forms of its ultimate births. . . . It is necessary to bear in mind this primary fusion, though not confusion, of ideas.” (Jane Harrison, Prolegomena to the Study of Greek Religion)

Blavatsky uses a lot of symbols in her The Secret Doctrine. Ashish rightly notes that she will use different symbols to describe the same thing (p. 32). For that reason there are teachers of The Secret Doctrine who make lists of symbols and have the students associate on them all, to prepare them for the understanding of the book. This is probably a good method, because it helps the mind become conscious of itself. Then combining all that again by reading The Stanzas will help do what Ashish says their whole object is: “to impart not the analytic knowledge of the discursive mind (manas), but the feeling-knowledge of the intuitive mind (buddhi).” (p. 30) “The intellectualistic logic of ‘B is either A or not A’ must be transcended if reality is to be grasped in its entirety. For this purpose the archaic symbolic thought, with all its fluidity and seeming vagueness, will be found an invaluable instrument.”

From this perspective it becomes clear that the contradictions in the ancient scriptures are not there to be smoothed over – they are to be accepted and meditated upon. Because… they are the mirror of ‘the deep and dark emotive forces of all that side of our beings to which we refer when we use the word feeling in preferance to thinking.’ (p. 31) This is obviously a reference to a kind of Jungian understanding of both our own psyche and our relationship to the universe. Indeed, Ashish goes on to say: ‘Now, as at all times, these concrete symbols are the real and actual language of our psyches, and, whether our search is for knowledge of the macrocosmic universe or of the microcosmic self, we have to turn to our mistress Psyche for knowledge of the feeling half of life. Without this, our cognations will be as unbalanced as a world that should know no night, no dark fortnight of the moon and no southward path of the sun in winter, but only the shadowless light of an equatorial noon.’

I guess in this blogpost I’ve come full circle – after 14 years of studying theosophy, science and world religion, I still agree that ultimately the truth of symbols is to be primarily experienced – and any interpretation in words is a lesser reflection.

Organized religion versus science and atheism

Katinka - Spirituality — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:18:00 +0000

This is one of those topics that just never seems to get stale online. mergyeugnau shared some of her insights on twitter just now that I feel are a mirror of what many out there are feeling about this topic. So, before her tweets get lost in the internet dustbin, here they are including my response. (with her permission)

OK, I identify as a mystic relativist. My own experience & beliefs are here: http://bit.ly/4dtNGP I believe everyone’s experience is true.

There’s a difference between experience and how it’s interpreted. Every experience is real, as an experience, but whether our interpretation of it is valid enough for others to benefit from it, is another matter. Clairvoyant experiences for instance are valid in my perception: but the experience of the seer, as well as their power of observation, their natural prejudices etc. all matter in how reliable they are as a witness. On a more common note: there are very few people good at perception to a degree that they make good witnesses in a police investigation. If that’s true when it comes to ordinary life, how much more true must it be for the more fuzzy issues on the spiritual planes?

I believe in cognitive dissonance as essential to understanding reality. My experience & yours can be opposing and both valid. (Cognitive dissonance is the ability to hold competing facts or beliefs in one’s mind at the same time. We all do it at some level.) I believe that the more consciously we acknowledge cognitive dissonance the less we’re compelled to judgment. Or to acknowledge one’s hypocrisy. I often do things that I can’t explain but I am honest about the inconsistency.

I love that. I have decided long ago that it’s better to be an imperfect vegetarian than to avoid even trying because I can’t manage perfection. Avoiding perfection like that can be a great excuse not to even try. Of course trying for an objective understanding is pretty hard if we’re going to let the dissonance stand without at least trying to analyze it. On the other hand: the differences can’t be analyzed without being honest about them in the first place.

I believe everyone on the bell curve from staunch atheist to staunch theist has the right to hold & express their beliefs *for themselves*

And that we all should be able to do so unmolested. I abhor proselytizing of *any form* whether missionary or sceptic.

Yes, organized religion can be & has been destructive, but so can organized science (e.g. crusades & modern warfare.) The problem is this

That all human endeavors and structures are composed of humans. And we have both the beautiful & the horrific within us.

Organized religion also gives us charity, art & literacy & organized science also gives us medicine, ways to connect & appease suffering.

In summary: We need *all* of human experience, belief & endeavor & any time we cross over to interfere with another we damage us all.

Amen sister.

It’s sad that we’ve gotten to a point in our culture that I’m more fearful of talking about my faith than my sexuality, rape or politics.

That’s one of those statements that I both get and don’t. I guess the ‘our culture’ part is key. Being in The Netherlands of 2009 is different from being in the USA in 2009. In the US the dichotomy between the atheist scientists and the believer fanatics is so strong that any in between is at risk of being attacked from both. Or so I gather from these tweets. Which does remind me of how things were in The Netherlands when I was growing up. That is: back then religion was a taboo subject. The Netherlands have long prided itself on being a secular society where religion no longer played a big role. That is: those who did not believe in the sense of organized religion prided themselves of that. Those who were religious in the traditional sense, aka Christian of some denomination or other, huddled together and hardly mentioned their faith beyond their close circle.

Since then a lot has changed. ‘New Age’ has gone mainstream and things like alternative healing, vegetarianism, belief in reincarnation, near death experiences are now acceptable topics of conversation for many. There are few restaurants in The Netherlands that don’t have at least one, but usually several, vegetarian dishes on the menu. The term ‘New Age’ has lost much of it’s luster, but the movement itself has not. I do think Christians are still in a bit of a pickle though as are Muslims.

So, I don’t at all feel afraid to talk or write about these issues. I do it as a matter of course. Not out of bravery or anything like that. Simply because these topics fascinate me and are, these days, socially acceptable. I guess I’m lucky to be living here.

My point is this. Belief is not the same as action & an individual is not the same as a group. We must ALL live & let live in our diversity.

Organized religion *at its extreme* is terrible. You never hear of the millions of peaceful congregations of various faiths.

Churches, temples, monasteries, covens etc. throughout the ages have provided solace, education, charity and community.

A person who is judgmental & violent will use whatever tools they have to inflict harm, whether organized religion, nationalism or eugenics.

Group processes do go wrong sometimes. One thing the Hitler era has taught us, I hope, is that ordinary people can be guided into doing terrible things. Perhaps it should be remembered too that Hitler was merely tolerant of existing religion, he certainly did not actively support it. However to simply avoid groups because sometimes they go wrong is a bit ignorant of human nature. We form groups, that’s what we do. These days we have a choice which groups to join, how stable those groups are going to be, and how we contribute to them. And yes, that can include religious groups.

So, how do you, my readers stand on this one? Do you feel comfortable talking about where you stand on the spectrum between organised religion, spirituality, atheism and materialistic science? I think it would be helpful to share your age (at least roughly) and location. I’ll start. I’m 35, living in the Netherlands and having lived there for most of my life except one year I spent in the US when I was a teenager.

The carbon cycle: global warming explained

Katinka - Spirituality — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:08:41 +0000

It’s Blog Action Day today. This year the theme is Global Warming. Since I’ve recently been in a discussion with people who still don’t believe it’s real, I decided to share with you the main arguments why I do believe Global Warming is a real threat. Let me start out with some basic facts I’ve learned in the many classes I took about the environment when in teachers college.

There is only 0.0383% CO2 or Carbon dioxide in the earth atmosphere. The amount of carbon dioxide in the air varies with the season because plants in the northern hemisphere use it to grow in summer, and their leaves decomposing in winter brings back carbon dioxide into the air in winter. This effect is strong enough to be measurable. Plant life in all its forms is the main part of the carbon cycle. Trees convert carbon dioxide into carbohydrates (aka sugars and fibers) during photosynthesis, releasing oxygen in the process. Plants and trees decomposing bring back carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, except when they turn into fossil fuels like oil, coal and natural gas (usually containing a lot of methane which is also a greenhouse gas btw).

The main issue with fossil fuels is that they took between 350 and 50 million years to form. We’ve been using them intensively for the past hundred years or so, and every decade brings a more intensive use as developing countries like China and India become more and more industrialized. The fact is, oil is a finite resource. It is not being produced by nature nearly as fast as we’re using it up. The economic result is of course rising oil prices. In 2004 a team of experts announced to the world that oil needed to be priced very much higher than the then standard of $40,- a barrel to make sure that alternative energy got developed fast enough to be able to take over when the oil really ran out. Since then oil prices have gone up, and then down, because of the economic crisis. Here are a few other articles warning about the same: 2009, 2005. We’re now back up to $75 a barrel. One should compensate slightly for the dollar being lower than it was in 2004, but still the difference is almost 100% and that with the economy not recovered yet.

What does that have to do with global warming? It’s a sign how much of the store of oil that the earth had kept for us is already depleted. And given that this store of fossil fuels also locked in millions of years of CO2, it’s reasonable to ask: what is the effect of all that CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere within a hundred years or so?

Well, what happens is this:

About a third goes missing, probably dissolving into the oceans. This may sound like good news, but CO2 plus water gives acid. And acid is NOT good for the many species of animals and seafood that have hard shells. But recently scientists found that in Japan the heating up of the oceans due to global warming is already having a measurable effect on the amount of carbon dioxide the seas can take in. That is: warmer water, less carbon dioxide gets dissolved into it. This may be good news for crustations and molluscs, but it’s not good for our climate.

The rest goes into the atmosphere. Some of it helps plant life grow faster, which takes it out of the air again, luckily.

But now for the clincher. If you didn’t believe that CO2 was being released into the atmosphere, you had to ignore a lot of commonly available knowledge. To deny that this Carbon Dioxide is a green house gas, capable of helping to increase the earth temperature you have to deny some less easily explained chemical facts. Luckily I’m a chemistry teacher, so I’ll do my best to explain.

The earth gets warmed by the sun in the day time. At night, heat radiation cools it off. Heat radiation is actually a form of invisible light, otherwise known as infrared. One of the capacities of any chemical is which forms of radiations it absorbs. In the visible spectrum we call that ‘color’ (roughly). When it comes to invisible radiation you’ll have to take my word for it: any substance has forms of light radiation it absorbs. Carbon dioxide absorbs infrared radiation. More carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, means more heat radiation gets absorbed by the molucules in the air, and that stops the radiation from going into space. As it hasn’t left our atmosphere, it’s still available as heat, and the earth doesn’t cool off at night.

Since this nightly cooling down has only an indirect effect on day temperature, but is more directly linked to greenhouse gasses, you’d expect the night temperatures to go up faster than day temperatures. And so it is. Here’s the stats for the US for instance.

Summing up: the line of evidence is clear. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that keeps heat energy in the earth system when the earth ought to cool down at night. We’ve collectively been sending a lot of carbon dioxide into the air in the past century, there is no reason to think that would not effect the climate. Recent evidence includes the disappearance of the polar bear, the last few years being the hottest in recorded history, despite the fact that we’ve now entered a low sun activity period. [More on sun activity and the climate.]

Man the Measure of All Things, Sri Krishna Prem and Sri Madhava Ashish

Katinka - Spirituality — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 13:22:15 +0000

I’ve just discovered an old classic whose title I have heard and read mentioned time and again. It’s a classic for a reason. There’s hardly a sentence that doesn’t add insight or new perspective. I’m talking about Man The Measure of All Things, by Sri Krishna Prem and Sri Madhava Ashish. I suspect this book alone will give me more than enough to blog about for weeks if not months. I’ll be writing a full review on the page I link to above, but since this is the first blogpost devoted to the subject, I’ll introduce it here too.

Sri Madhava Ashish was apparently a disciple of Sri Krishna Prem (Ronald Henry Nixon, 1898-1965), a former theosophist who moved to India and became a devotee of Sri Krishna (hence his spiritual name). Henry Nixon had written a commentary on Blavatsky’s Secret Doctrine, or the stanzas there in, but had never finished it enough to make a book. He gave Madhava Ashish permission to finish it. The result is the first book I’ve read in ages that balances serious thought and spiritual inspiration.

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky’s book The Secret Doctrine consists of two parts: first cosmogenesis, an account of the way the universe came into being, second anthropogenesis, an account of the evolution of mankind. Both are structured as commentaries on The Stanzas of Dzyan. Blavatsky claims these stanzas are from an ancient hidden manuscript accessible only to the highest initiates. She translated selected verses and their commentaries into English and commented on them to create her magnum opus. This structure of enigmatic verses, being commented on and then the comments themselves getting elaborated is a normal affair in Indian philosophy. Blavatsky uses the science of her day as well as her insight into the nature of being in her commentary. The result is a book that is still influential today. However, it’s not an easy book, which is why every once in a while someone attempts an abridgement, the latest by Michael Gomes.

Krishna Prem did something else entirely, he started on the Stanzas of Dzyan and commented on them afresh, though clearly having read the rest as well. It is hard to write about this book, as it speaks so well for itself. Consider these thoughts:

This, however, is the real purpose of the ancient cosmogonies: to invite us to turn our gaze inwards to the source and origin both of the ‘outer’ universe of phenomena and of the ‘inner’ universe of consciousness, to find there the ever-present and eternal simultaneity of what is here seen as a flow of separate events in time; and above all, to fathom the ultimate mystery of selfhood.

But what has the Self, the mysterious root of human consciousness, got to do with a cosmogony, an account of the origination of the material universe? Such a question can only arise when, as most of us do, we explicitly or implicitly draw distinctions between ourselves and the things (phenomena or sense experience) around us: things we desire or fear to possess; events we desire or fear will happen; qualities of mind or feeling that add to or subtract from our self-opinion; things we value as adding to our pleasure, power or importance (etc.) (pp. 17, 18)

I hope it is clear from these few sentences that it is not everyday man (or woman) that is seen as the measure of all things. It’s the ideal person, that is seen as a symbol and representation of the Ultimate, the Real, the Total Universe. One of the ways in which each human being is a symbol of the universe is in the sense that in us all the levels of being are represented, if the highest only in possibility. From the physical through life force, emotion, thought and divine inspiration – all of that is a reflection of similar aspects inherent in the universe itself. In each of us individually there is usually a weight towards one aspect or another. Too much thought, too much emotion or too much attention to the physical. In most of us the divine gets hidden by all the other aspects of our being that demand attention with a far louder voice. It’s not for nothing that Blavatsky called her main devotional work ‘The Voice of the Silence‘. That still small voice will never force itself on anybody. It speeks quietly when all else in us is still.

Madhava Ashish puts it like this:

If we make an effort to isolate our selfhood from the phenomena of sense, one of the things we see is that, apart from the conventions of ownership, we do not really possess anything, not even our bodies. We are usually in the position of observers, often against our will, of a flow of ‘external’ or ‘internal’ events, and we are led to question whether those events have independent reality apart from an observer.

This is where the problem of self meets the problem of matter. We have to find an integral understanding of all experience which will resolve the dilemma in the interdependence of conscious observer and content of experience. (p. 18)

Spiritual fantasy; spirituality lifestyle or quest? harry potter; a buddhist…?

Katinka - Spirituality — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 13:42:32 +0000

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Just to remind you, with the gift season coming up:

The rest of this spiritual newsletter contains spiritual quotes and an article about The Occultism of S. Paul.

Previous issues of Lucifer7 can be found at the online index of Lucifer7

I want to thank all of you who support me, whether financially, by asking questions, commenting or just be reading and enjoying what I put online. To those who wonder: no, I don’t mind if people link to my website(s). In fact: it’s appreciated. For instance: my blog will find new readers faster if people share it with friends and link to it.

Harry Potter and the Spiritual Quest

Katinka - Spirituality — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 08:36:01 +0000

Every once in a while I like to share with you all some of what I have on my website. Today it’s a long overdue post about Harry Potter and how one can interpret his magical adventures from a spiritual perspective. It makes sense to start with what Helene Vachet has to say about Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (aka Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone). She sees the whole Harry Potter series as a spiritual quest and goes into how that particular book is about a quest. It’s a search on the practical level as well, of course. Like all the Harry Potter books it’s part mystery in the ‘let’s solve the mystery’ sense.

John Algeo, a researcher and teacher of English, looks at the Harry Potter series in a more literary and analytical light in his piece Harry Potter and the Ancient Wisdom:

The books are examples of three literary genres. One is the bildungsroman, or novel of the moral and psychological education of the protagonist; Harry Potter is a student at a boarding school, but is also in the great school of Life. Another genre is the quest story, in which the protagonist faces a series of trials, the passing of which results in the discovery of a great treasure–in Harry’s case, self-knowledge. And the third is the fairy tale, whose central character is often an orphan; Harry is an orphan and thus a fitting representative of every human being, for we are all, in the words of one of the great Theosophical teachers, members of “poor orphan humanity.”

In his article about the Chamber of Secrets, John Algeo analyses the quest aspect of that book as follows:

In his second year, Harry learns, among other things, about the three marks of existence that the Buddha taught, namely (1) that life involves suffering, (2) that we have no enduring separate self, and (3) that everything is constantly changing or transforming. Indeed, transformation is the key theme of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets.

On a more psychological level, many of the books, including the final one, are about the search for a father. John Algeo goes into that theme in particular in his article analyzing Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. He finds four father figures for Harry: Sirius Black, who was James Potter’s best friend, best man at his wedding, and godfather to Harry. He symbolizes devotion for Harry. The teacher and werewolf Remus Lupin stands for Knowledge. Dumbledore the headmaster of the school, but always a controversial figure, stands for intuition and last but not least, the dead James Potter, stands for the eternal wisdom we can only find in ourselves.

William W. Quinn in his article Harry Potter and Maximizing Cyclic Opportunities, analyses some of the themes from the perennial wisdom tradition that J.K. Rowling uses.

Last but not least, John Algeo’s remarkable article about the last of the series: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. In this article, written before the book was out, he foreshadows many of the themes in the book correctly. Though he notes that he’s no seer, he is apparently well versed enough in literature to have done a fine job none the less.

Being halfway a Buddhist – what’s a real Buddhist?

Katinka - Spirituality — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:36:28 +0000

I said in my blogpost about whether Buddhism was the best world religion (let alone win an award) that I was halfway a Buddhist myself. I got a question about that: what do I mean?

A real Buddhist, in my view, and in the traditional Asian view, is someone who has taken refuge. That is, in a solemn ritual they have taken refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. I have not done that, so I’m not officially a Buddhist.

However, being a vegetarian who tries to live by the five precepts, who believes that Buddha was one of the greatest spiritual teachers of all time, believing in karma and rebirth, and knowing sunyata to be a true description of reality, Buddhism is certainly closer to my personal religion than any other religion.

Is spirituality a lifestyle or a quest?

Katinka - Spirituality — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 13:45:15 +0000

I have been pondering recently the difference between spirituality as a life style and spirituality as a quest. Consider the following Blavatsky quote (the modernized English is mine) from The Voice of the Silence, The Seven Portals:

Before you stand on the threshold of the path; before you cross the foremost Gate, you have to merge the two in the One and sacrifice the personal to SELF impersonal, and thus destroy the ‘path’ between the two – antaskarana.

You have to be prepared to answer Dharma, the stern law, whose voice will ask you at your first, your initial step:

“Have you complied with all the rules, you with your lofty hopes?”

“Have you attuned your heart and mind to the great mind and heart of mankind? For as the sacred River’s roaring voice whereby all Nature-sounds are echoed back, so must the heart of him ‘who in the stream would enter,’ thrill in response to every sigh and thought of all that lives and breathes.”

Compare such stern words with those who treat astrology or tarot as fun amusements – not to get to know themselves better, to become better people, to find their way in life.

On the other hand when such sentiments as the above are repeated too often, as they are in theosophical circles, what happens is the opposite. So much energy goes into talking about self sacrifice, in denying self, that sometimes something of normal liveliness is lost. Something dries out, because there is no step that can be ignored on the path.

And one of those steps is precisely the second half of this quote: a felt connection with humanity as a whole. That doesn’t start with knowing how badly many people in Africa need food, medicine and education. The real connection with humanity starts at home: the natural relationships we are in. Family, friends, colleagues… Ignoring your own and their humanness is the first step towards a kind cruelty. I say ‘kind cruelty’ because sometimes the smile is there, the words are right, but the essence has somehow fled.

As I’m pondering this, not at all sure I live up to the ideals I sketch here, I come back to the basic insight that is the conclusion of many of my ponderings: While on the path extremes are often found, they have to go, because in the end there’s a balance between the impersonal and the personal. There’s a balance to be found between feeling the needs of humanity as a whole and being there facing your own and others’ real needs in day to day life.

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Spiritual fantasy: The Curse of the Tahiéra

Katinka - Spirituality — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 13:28:52 +0000

I met Wendy Gillisen online. It turned out we have a lot in common: an interest in fantasy fiction and spirituality and what’s more, she’s also Dutch. So she sent me her novel ‘Curse of the Tahiéra. I was of course surprised that she would have written a novel in English when her first language was Dutch (it is available in Dutch as well). I have to admit, I was also skeptical of the quality. I get sent books a few times a year and they are generally not worth discussing.

The first and only ‘dutch-ism’ I could find was on the first page. The book gets better and better as you read on. Once I’d passed the first chapter, I was totally hooked. The world Wendy has created reminds one of the Middle Earth of Tolkien, but more natural. It’s reminiscent of Marion Zimmer Bradley’s interpretation of the myths of Arthur, except that this is not about king Arthur. It is clearly inspired partly by the stories of Atlantis, except that it’s not about Atlantis.

In short: Gillissen created her own world, though heavily using themes from the myths and history of Great Britain.

In this world three races of people have lived together for centuries, mixing yet always in conflict. Our main character young ‘Rom’ is of mixed descent and in consequence has had a very difficult life. It’s about to get even harder as he meets a stranger on one of his travels. That’s the start of the story. Together they get into more trouble and Rom learns the magic that is his inheritance. Together they travel their world because the wise stranger has noted a danger that he feels only Rom can avert.

The magic of this world has everything to do with dreams. Dreams which constantly mix with reality. This is a reality which Rom has to face head on and explore. Rom is a strange character: like Harry Potter he is giving, yet sometimes aggressive. As we (and he) learn more about him, the mystery deepens. Facing himself will determine the future of this world. I won’t give the plot away, but I can tell you that it will move you AND make you curious about the sequel.

The best fantasy fiction creates a world that is internally consistent and convincing. It makes us feel, if only for a few hours, that what is described could very well be. Wendy Gillissen has created such a world and I’m looking forward to the sequal which should come out this autumn.

All Considering

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